My bedtime is highly variable. I might extinguish the light at 10PM, finally giving in after reading on the couch and dropping my Kindle on my face for the third time. Other times it's at 2AM after getting home following a long and late day. But whether it's my age or my body or my mental state, or just as likely some combination of all three, once I turn the light off I find myself waking up more and more often. These constant mini-sleeps are not necessarily restful, but at least they give me a better chance to remember the trailers playing in my head.
That's the best way to describe those REM moments that unspool throughout the night. REM in this case stands not for the Michael Stipe band of "Losing My Religion" fame, but rather for rapid eye movement, those instances of fast breathing and heart pounding that happen when you are asleep, and are usually associated with vivid dreams. If you go sleep at 11PM and roll over at 6AM it's not that you don't have them, it's just more likely that you won't remember them. But if you have my schedule, you have a better chance of snapping awake and having a conscious reflection for at least a few moments as to why you were standing on top of Mount Kilimanjaro in your bathing suit with a saxophone while on the phone with your tax preparer defending your purchase of a tutu as a necessary business expense. You too, huh?
The good news is that unlike when I was 5 years old, a part of my brain now seems have some kind of built-in fantasy detector. It allows me to enjoy these fantasias in their phantasmagorical glory for what they are, and not cause me to look under the bed for the dragon with two heads. But as to whether or not I try and tease some meaning out of them depends on what phase of the night it is.
I divide the period between turning in and waking up into three phases. The first is "going to bed time." As noted this can be as early as ten (and sometimes embarrassingly earlier) or as late as one, and represents the onramp to real rest. For me it's usually when I get my deepest sleep, and not coincidentally, my weirdest dreams. But it's this side of "real" night, so even if I wake up, I go back to sleep easily and blissfully, aware that whatever challenges are in store for me the next day are miles away. And so I eagerly turn over, close my eyes and activate my mental bookmark to pick up where I left off in any adventure I'm having.
Then there's the proverbial "middle of the night." Depending on when I started, this is anywhere from midnight to 3AM. It's that nether world where a peek out the window reveals inky stillness, and the only sound in the house is the refrigerator cycling. Dreams here are in little self-contained mini-episodes, kind of like an installment of "Law and Order." It's like I have some awareness of the limited time I have left, and so my brain avoids cliff hangers, wrapping up the action before the final credits roll.
Finally there's "waking up time." For me this extends from that roughly 3AM marker to when it's time to get up and start going. That can be as early as 330AM or as late as 6AM, and varies every day depending on the project I'm on. It's more catnap than anything else, what one friend calls "production sleep," driven in equal parts of not wanting to oversleep and already planning what has to be accomplished that day. Dreams here are more like coming attractions, short one-act plays that you can almost hear the drama coach in the corner yelling, "And - scene."
Maybe you simply go to bed and wake up, and this all sounds like some war-torn exotic country you'd rather not visit: I don't blame you. But it was Hamlet who said "To sleep, perchance to dream." I have no problem with the later; it's the former that eludes me. And so if I might, let me paraphrase Shakespeare for my situation: To sleep, perchance to sleep. Wouldn't that be nice for a change.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford tries to sleep when he is tired. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
That's the best way to describe those REM moments that unspool throughout the night. REM in this case stands not for the Michael Stipe band of "Losing My Religion" fame, but rather for rapid eye movement, those instances of fast breathing and heart pounding that happen when you are asleep, and are usually associated with vivid dreams. If you go sleep at 11PM and roll over at 6AM it's not that you don't have them, it's just more likely that you won't remember them. But if you have my schedule, you have a better chance of snapping awake and having a conscious reflection for at least a few moments as to why you were standing on top of Mount Kilimanjaro in your bathing suit with a saxophone while on the phone with your tax preparer defending your purchase of a tutu as a necessary business expense. You too, huh?
The good news is that unlike when I was 5 years old, a part of my brain now seems have some kind of built-in fantasy detector. It allows me to enjoy these fantasias in their phantasmagorical glory for what they are, and not cause me to look under the bed for the dragon with two heads. But as to whether or not I try and tease some meaning out of them depends on what phase of the night it is.
I divide the period between turning in and waking up into three phases. The first is "going to bed time." As noted this can be as early as ten (and sometimes embarrassingly earlier) or as late as one, and represents the onramp to real rest. For me it's usually when I get my deepest sleep, and not coincidentally, my weirdest dreams. But it's this side of "real" night, so even if I wake up, I go back to sleep easily and blissfully, aware that whatever challenges are in store for me the next day are miles away. And so I eagerly turn over, close my eyes and activate my mental bookmark to pick up where I left off in any adventure I'm having.
Then there's the proverbial "middle of the night." Depending on when I started, this is anywhere from midnight to 3AM. It's that nether world where a peek out the window reveals inky stillness, and the only sound in the house is the refrigerator cycling. Dreams here are in little self-contained mini-episodes, kind of like an installment of "Law and Order." It's like I have some awareness of the limited time I have left, and so my brain avoids cliff hangers, wrapping up the action before the final credits roll.
Finally there's "waking up time." For me this extends from that roughly 3AM marker to when it's time to get up and start going. That can be as early as 330AM or as late as 6AM, and varies every day depending on the project I'm on. It's more catnap than anything else, what one friend calls "production sleep," driven in equal parts of not wanting to oversleep and already planning what has to be accomplished that day. Dreams here are more like coming attractions, short one-act plays that you can almost hear the drama coach in the corner yelling, "And - scene."
Maybe you simply go to bed and wake up, and this all sounds like some war-torn exotic country you'd rather not visit: I don't blame you. But it was Hamlet who said "To sleep, perchance to dream." I have no problem with the later; it's the former that eludes me. And so if I might, let me paraphrase Shakespeare for my situation: To sleep, perchance to sleep. Wouldn't that be nice for a change.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford tries to sleep when he is tired. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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